Sunday, December 23, 2012

New York, New York..

This morning we got up while the kids were still in bed and hit the street early to look for extra luggage. As opposed to every hour of the day from noon till midnight, the shops were quite empty at 9am. It was great! We found some terribly cheap roller duffle bags (thanks Fodorites for this suggestion) and a KMart with a tiny little tree for our hotel room.

With the tree, (complete with $2 LED lights), installed and decorated with the baubles we have been collecting on our travels, everyone was feeling much more festive as we jumped on the subway and made our way down to Chelsea. Away from Downtown, New York is quite lovely. The architecture is varied and fascinating and there's room to walk on the pavement. I could live in here.

We walked the Highline, a disused railway become parkland. This is a magnificent recycling of land with great views of the city and a lovely, Sunday walk feel to it. It's definitely on my NY 'must do' list. We had a yummy lunch at the Crumbcake cafe and then walked to the Flatiron building. Although it was cold, the sun was shining and there was no wind today; New York at its finest.

Despite my pedometer saying we'd already walked 20,000 steps, after a short shower break we headed back downtown to the Radio City Music Hall for the Rockettes Christmas Spectacular. And spectacular it was. Lots of high kicking and a tapped version of the 12 days of Christmas. Singing with feet! Santa took us on a 3D trip around the world and a little girl learnt about Christmas through a video game. WT?

On the way home we stopped at Bryant Park for hot chocolate, wandered the market stalls and watched the ice skating. Have I mentioned before that this whole trip feels like a dream? Never more than this evening.

By the time I write my next post, it will already be Christmas Day in Aus/ NZ.